The Ninja and the Autopsy Gremlin
by MurphysScribe
Summary: After a chance meeting in the park, Ziva and Jimmy begin to be good friends. Friends, only, NO pairing.
1. Chapter 1

Riffing on NCISDrabble100 Challenge 181: Seasons

Characters: Ziva David, Jimmy Palmer  
Rating G  
Spoilers: Up through Season 7 but nothing earth-shattering.  
Summary: Ziva and Jimmy bump into each other on a sunny day.

Author's note: It's spring, and Jimmy's about to be in finals.

Ziva finished her stretches, checked to make sure her sneaker laces were tied snugly, and began to jog down the trail. Running in the park still felt strange, her body not quite moving to her exacting standards, not yet. But, the warmer weather had turned DC into a riot of fluffy pink cherry blossoms. She let her gaze wander among the flowers as she lengthened her stride. She loved this time of year- Israel had nothing like this soft, flowery season, a relief after winter.  
She let her gaze sweep over the people crowding the park- even enjoying a day off, she stayed alert. Dog walkers, other joggers, a few early lunch picnics spread out on the petal-scattered grass.

As she was ending her run and getting ready to head back, she saw a familiar head of brown curls bent over a book on a picnic blanket. She slowed her pace and crossed to him.  
"Jimmy, good afternoon," she said.  
His head whipped up so fast his glasses were crooked. "wha! Oh! Hi Ziva!" He sat up. "You went for a run? Want to sit down? I have lemonade." Jimmy straightened his glasses and untangled his limbs to sit upright on his blanket, patting a spot for her to sit.  
She eased herself down gracefully, stretching her hamstrings as she sat. "Thank you." The lemonade was cold and sweet. "What are you reading?" she asked, tilting her head to look.  
"Killer Angels," he said. "It's Civil War historical fiction. I should be studying for finals but,"  
"Not on a beautiful day like this," Ziva agreed. "Would you like to come get a sandwich with me?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A few weeks later.

Author's note: Slight Season 7 Spoiler in that Jimmy has finished his studies, and Ducky offered him a job. Grownup Jimmy!

And I didn't mention this before- but obviously I own no characters from NCIS.

In the park...

Another warm and breezy day, carrying flutters of pink petals through the air. Ziva found herself running along a familiar route towards the park. Inwardly, her Mossad training rebelled. _Taking the same route makes you dangerously predictable, vulnerable to being attacked._

As she warmed up and her strides lengthened, she shook off that inner voice. That part of her life was over. Americans didn't think such things, going out for a jog on a fine sunny day. She ran through the park, pushing herself, loving the faint promise of summer in the air.

She took the path where it split off, to push for a longer run before she came to the sunny expanse of green where she'd found Jimmy that afternoon. Only a little breathless, she quirked a smile at her thoughts.She wasn't even sure he had this weekend off! Or what his cell phone number was!

Meanwhile, on the lawn...

Jimmy had bought two lemonades, in which the ice was melting, though he tried to keep them in the shade. He tried not to feel like an absolute dork. He'd come to the park with two sandwiches in a silly orange cooler bag because he didn't want the nice sandwiches from the Kosher deli to get weird in the heat. He'd gone back to the same deli Ziva had shown him. Though it took a little creative GPS and Googling because he'd sworn it was further up on H street. He'd come back to the same part of the park (he thought! Hard to tell with trees, and a lousy sense of direction.)

He had to laugh at himself, doing all this, without doing something rational, and sensible, like checking in with Ziva, seeing if she wanted to meet up. In another 10 minutes, he was going to eat one of the sandwiches. This- lying in wait, was just weird. And definitely a risk, since Ziva probably knew more ways to kill him without leaving a mark than Abby claimed to. Actually calling Ziva, though, to check her plans?- kind of more terrifying than an angry Gibbs.

A shadow fell across the journal he'd been pretending to read.

He slid over to make room for Ziva on his picnic blanket.

"You got a lemonade just for me?" she marveled. "You did not even know I'd be here."

"If you didn't show up, I figured, more for me," he ventured.

She laughed mid-swallow and almost choked. "You sound like DiNozzo."

Jimmy took that to mean "smoother than he felt," and was pleased. "And!" he added eagerly "I got sandwiches!"


	3. Chapter 3

Continued from last post. Ziva and Jimmy are having their picnic.

"I told them no tomatoes on yours," Jimmy said, as Ziva picked the slices out of her sandwich. "I'll take 'em if you want."

Gratefully, Ziva handed the slimy vegetables over. "I do like them when they are cooked." She looked up at him. "Wait- you remembered what I ordered last time?"

Jimmy blushed. "Just the no tomatoes. Roast beef's all right, right?"

"Delicious, especially after a good run."

Jimmy grinned. "I guessed right!"

"You were planning on meeting me here?" she asked, smiling pleasantly.

He was never going to stop blushing, never. "Um. Kinda hoping you'd come this way? That's not weird is it. Is that weird?" Okay, there'd been a Sunday where he'd been about to eat the second sandwich, when he got called into the lab with Ducky for the case she'd been out solving with the team...

"Relax, Jimmy. I cannot possibly make you nervous."

"But you can kill me 81 ways with a paper clip!" Jimmy blurted.

When Ziva finished laughing she stared off into the distance, meditatively. "Actually, possibly only 56. And, not you. 81 is a much more menacing sounding number, for keeping DiNozzo and McGee uncertain."

"Bu-huh?" Jimmy hadn't realized Ziva's sense of humor was so... "wow, that's, kind of twisted."

Ziva gave him the sphinx-like smile that had scared the heck out of him when he first met her. But he saw her eyes dancing.

She turned to look at the journal he was reading. "Hm. Diagrams and footnotes. Very scholarly. Wait..." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You have graduated, yes? And you're done with your studies?"

"Yeah... but this looked interesting and continuing ed, and you know, I heard him talk at Georgetown once about findings in red blood cells and" he was babbling like Abby, she was going to think he had a crush on her or something.

"And while you were suffering with finals, you were reading that book of the American Civil war."

Nope... Jimmy was never going to stop blushing. "Yeah. I know. Man- every semester- I swear I read more fiction during finals than the entire rest of the year." Blushing at himself, he drank lemonade. She asked him what the book was again, and they were talking about fiction. She'd read authors he'd never even heard of. He wrote a couple down on a scrap of deli napkin.

As they were getting their trash gathered and Jimmy's blanket folded, they both started to speak at once.

"Will you-

"Do you?-"

Jimmy laughed. "Man, I thought that only happened in dumb movies. You first."

"Do you run, ever, Jimmy?"

"Wait- run? I did track in high school, but I wasn't that great- small school- needed me on the team. Um, yeah, kinda- I jog on the treadmill?"

Ziva tried to make her smile look as not-scary as possible. She was clearly still making him nervous. "I was wondering- if you might want to run with me sometime? What were you going to ask?"

"I was thinking- maybe you wanted to actually plan to meet for a post-run sandwich sometime? I think I like the afterward part of the run a _lot_ better."

"I will be off Sunday unless..."

"Unless we have a case," Jimmy finished.


	4. Chapter 4

Plans for lunch

On Saturday night, four members of the NCIS team were using the Internet. Abby was getting ready to go out, chatting with a college girlfriend over IM. DiNozzo alternated between ChatRoulette and . And in two apartments in separate corners of the city, two NCIS employees were deep into recipe websites.

Ziva, typically stubborn and thorough, had a website on diabetic cooking open, as well as a book she'd checked out of the library. She was taking notes from both, and comparing them to a few recipe index cards she'd pulled from her collection. As she read, she was pretty sure she could get away with something she'd planned to make anyway. Pulling bowls and ingredients off kitchen shelves, she hummed to herself, very pleased. It would be fun to introduce Jimmy to some new dishes.

Jimmy Palmer had Googled baba ghanoush spelled four different ways, including "that Middle Eastern thing with eggplants, recipe" before he figured out what to do with the eggplant he'd bought. Hummus had been no problem. He was actually pretty proud of that, and of finding a Middle Eastern grocery store that sold tahini.

Looking at their picnic spread, Jimmy laughed, feeling like he was in one of the romantic comedy DVDs he'd borrowed from Tony.

"Last night was the first time I made baba ghanoush or hummus, just so you know, and have some perspective, you know."

Ziva, more touched than she could say, only beamed. "I cannot wait to try yours."

Arrayed on the blanket between them was a collection of different Tupperware containers, and two bags of pitas. Jimmy had brought a thermos of iced tea. Ziva had brought lemonade. That was virtually the only place where their picnic offerings diverged. Two plastic containers of hummus, two of baba ghanoush, two piles of pitas.

Ziva wasn't wearing her running gear. She'd come to the park just for him, carrying a picnic bag. Jimmy stole a surreptitious glance at her feet. Sandals. Not designer, probably some mall knockoff, but still, good shoes.

Jimmy dug into the container of hummus Ziva had brought. She'd put olives in hers, but he could also taste garlic and lemon. "Oh! Yum!"

"And yours is much like my Tante Rachael's. Plenty of garlic!"

She noticed that her praise made Jimmy sit up taller on the blanket, his chest puffing out a little. She felt flattered that her compliment meant so much.

"You've had falafel, before, then?" she asked.

"Wait- did you make that from scratch?" Jimmy boggled. He was relieved when she told him about the mix she used to bake them. He liked to think of himself as a good cook, but he had a feeling that she had him outclassed.

"Oh and I've got tomatoes you might actually like," he said, grinning proudly when she looked dubious. "Trust me. They just started coming in at the greenmarket by me."

He'd made salad and left them separate, hoping to convert her. He popped open a container of red, orange and yellow cherry tomatoes.

"If you don't like them... don't kill me?"

She laughed. "Am I really that terrifying at work?"

"Oh God yes," Jimmy blurted out. He'd seen her bringing in suspects, or practicing fighting in the gym. And just... whoa.

"Oh good," she said, looking prim and wiping her mouth with a napkin, before giving him a wickedly gleeful grin. "That is the reputation I have worked to cultivate."

"Gibbs scares me way more!" Jimmy volunteered, earnestly.

"I think that was a compliment... now let us see, about this tomato." She picked up an orange one and looked at it skeptically before popping it into her mouth.

"Sweet!" she exclaimed. "How odd."

"You like them?"

"I have not decided yet," she replied, trying another. "Not terrible."

"I'll take that. By the end of the summer, the heirloom tomatoes will be in, and I'll bring some in for you. Most tomato-haters just haven't had good tomatoes."

As they ate, they started to relax, and the conversation wandered. Ziva confessed that she'd actually attempted to bake an apple pie earlier in the week, to celebrate her citizenship. It had turned into a mess that was both burnt and soggy.

"I've never made an apple pie, and I was born here."

"Even so! Apple pie! Baseball! Elvis! These, and decades of cinematic history, are the things that comprise American citizenship. At least according to Tony."

Jimmy made a face. "I can take or leave Elvis, I have to stab myself with a needle before I can eat pie, and I hate baseball. I really. Really hate baseball. You know I'm named for a baseball player, right?"

He explained, and told her other family stories that had her laughing and telling stories of her own. He was impressed at how funny and happy her stories were- his sense of Ziva's past was that it was full of tragedy and fights, and fights and, well, ninja stuff. It was a relief to learn otherwise.

They talked and ate, and flopped on the picnic blanket in companionable laziness.

"So how about that run?" Jimmy sat up on one elbow and said, brightly.

Ziva threw a tomato at him.


End file.
